The Angel Whispered Danger (20 page)

But Augusta would never had left us if she’d thought we wouldn’t be able to find our way out.
Follow the flowers
, she had said. Well and good, I thought, if only we were able to see them.

“Josie, I know you’re eager to get back, and believe me, so am I, but we’re going to have to wait a while until this fog lifts a little,” I told her.

While we waited, I found a Y-shaped stick and padded it with the bottom half of Uncle Ernest’s shirt to make a crude crutch for Josie.

“I had the funniest dream last night,” she said, resting against my shoulder.

“Funny peculiar or funny ha-ha?”

“Funny peculiar.” She raised up on an elbow to look at me. “A girl was with me . . . she looked like that girl I saw in the ocean, and she had a fawn—the sweetest little deer.”

“Really? What did she do?”

“Mostly she was just
there
, and I think she sang—hummed, really—songs without words. She brought me here in my dream, and Mom, she was so real! I remember her beside me when I went to sleep, and I wasn’t scared or anything.” Josie reached up to pluck a piece of hemlock from my hair. “Do you really think there are such things as angels?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I said.

When the fog had cleared enough, Josie and I crept carefully from beneath the branches of the hemlock tree and looked about. Somewhere in front of us the river plummeted from what sounded like a great height, then roared along its way. Instinctively, I stepped backward. “Do you see any flowers?” I asked with a protective hand on Josie’s shoulder.

“What kind of flowers?”

“I’m not sure.” I put one arm around her waist and we made our way to the other side of the hemlock where the trees thinned into a small grassy meadow.

“I see them!” Josie pointed to a winding pathway of pastel flowers in pink, yellow and blue. “How did you know they’d be here?”

“Guess I must’ve dreamed it,” I said, but I don’t think she believed me.

The going was slow and tedious even over the more-or-less level ground, and when the pathway wound into rougher, steeper terrain, I carried Josie on my back, using the crutch as a walking stick. I rested, panting, at the top of each hill and tried not to think of water. The flowery trail, although beautiful, seemed to go on forever.

“Mom, we’ll never get there at this rate. I’m too heavy! You can’t carry me forever.” Josie sat beside me on a rock and stretched her legs in front of her.

“Oh, yes I can, and I will. It just might take a little longer. Look, the hill slopes downward in front of us, and it looks like the path winds around it. You should be able to walk for a while.”

Half rolling, half sliding, we made it to the bottom of the hill, and with my help, Josie hobbled along for probably another hour until we came to a stream. It was a clear, shallow brook and even the sound of it refreshed us, but we knew better than to drink. Kneeling, we dashed water on our arms and faces, and I filled the water bottle to cool us later.

We seemed to be in the bottom of a ravine, and from there the path zigzagged up the side of a hill with what seemed an impossible height. I took a deep breath and bent to help Josie on my back. We would just have to take it in stages.

What had started as steps became crawls as we made our way over rocks and between saplings, and I was terrified that I might put my hand on a snake—or even worse, slip with Josie on my back and injure both of us. And where, I wondered, were Augusta and Penelope? Probably back in my parents’ kitchen stuffing themselves with pastries and coffee!
The flowers are a nice touch, but would it have broken some heavenly law to lead us back an easier way?
I thought.

“Mom, wait! I hear something.” Josie rolled from my back and crouched beside me.

“What?”
A bear? A snake?
I stiffened, ready to throw myself on top of her.

Somewhere in the distance a dog barked, and minutes later, Amos bounded out of the underbrush and threw himself upon us in a frenzy of licking.

“Amos, wait!” Someone called from the top of the hill. A man. Grady. “Thank God!” he said. “I thought we’d never find you!”

Tousled and dirty, my cousin didn’t look any better than I felt. Had he really been searching all this time? I put my arms around Josie and drew her to me, putting the dog between the two of us and Grady as he approached at a run.

“Josie, am I glad to see you!” he shouted. “Are you all right?

“Kate, why did you wander away like that? Where have you been? I was worried sick! Thought you’d fallen into the river.”

My daughter and I were alone with Grady Roundtree in the middle of a wilderness with no one but a dog to protect us, and from the way Amos was carrying on, he seemed to take to Grady as much as he did to Josie and me. This was not the time to make accusations.

“Got turned around,” I told him. “Couldn’t see to find my way back.”

“I called and called.” I couldn’t tell if Grady believed me or not. “Couldn’t you hear me? Why didn’t you answer?”

“The waterfall . . . all I could hear was the waterfall,” I said. “Sorry. I didn’t get lost just to worry you, Grady.”

My cousin grinned. “That’s okay. You found Josie, and that’s what matters. Where was she?”

“Asleep under a tree,” Josie told him. “An angel took me there.”

Grady winked at me and laughed. “Well, thank heavens for that!”

“How did you find us?” I asked my cousin as Josie pulled beggar’s lice from Amos’s matted fur.

“Darndest thing! I started back this morning as soon as it was light enough to see, when who should come running to meet me but Amos here!” Grady took off his hat to wipe his forehead. “Amos was the one who led me to you. Every time I tried to go in a different direction, he’d bark and run back and forth like a maniac until I followed him. Seemed to know where he was going—and since I didn’t, I let him have the lead.”

Grady frowned. “Josie, what happened to your foot?”

“I think I must’ve sprained it,” she said. “Mom’s been carrying me when we have to climb a hill.”

“My Lord! No wonder you look like you’ve been jerked through a knothole backward, Cuz!” My cousin began to take off his outer shirt. “No offense, Kate, but you do seem a bit worse for the wear.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Just tired.”

“Your arms look like road maps with all those bites and scratches. Here, put this on. It doesn’t smell too good, but then, neither do we.”

Grady gave his shirt a little flip to put it over my shoulders, and when he did, something rolled to the ground.

Dear God, was it the battery? How could I pretend I didn’t see it when it was lying at my feet?

But it wasn’t a flashlight battery half-buried in the grass between us, it was a roll of film.

Grady reached down and retrieved it. “I’ve been carrying that blasted film all night. Dad loaned me his shirt when we started out and he forgot to take the film out of the pocket.”

I stared at the small container of film that was about the same size as a flashlight battery, feeling as if I’d been slapped in the face, then turned away so Grady couldn’t see my expression.
Please, God, give me a break, and don’t let Grady ever find out what I had thought of him!

“How far do you think we are from Bramblewood?” I asked when I could compose myself.

My cousin scooped Josie up in his arms for the trek uphill and I followed gratefully. “Can’t be too far now, but we must’ve wandered off a long way out of the search area last night, Kate. Aside from Amos, I haven’t seen or heard a soul.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “How long have you been walking?”

“Forever!” My stomach growled. “Probably about two hours.”

“How did you know where you were going?” Grady asked.

“We followed the flowers,” Josie told him.

Grady set her down at the top of the hill and looked back at the way we had come. “What flowers?”

“Why, there was a path of them,” Josie said. “Blue and pink and yellow—so pretty! Mom, we should’ve picked some.”

I nodded in agreement. We should have, of course, because the trail of flowers wasn’t visible anymore.

With Amos running ahead, we walked for probably less than an hour before we heard someone shouting, and Burdette, and a man I learned later was from the sheriff’s department, ran out of the thicket to meet us.

“Thank God! I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy to see anybody in my life!” Burdette, who didn’t even try to hide his tears, wrapped me in his big arms, then took Josie from Grady to carry the rest of the way. I was glad to let the young policeman help me over the rough spots until we were in sight of Bramblewood.

The two of them had made good use of their whistles when they found us, so a group that must have been made up of just about everybody in the county was waiting to greet us, with Marge and Uncle Lum running ahead. Uncle Ernest, shirttail out and glasses askew, hurried along behind. Marge went right to Josie, Uncle Lum grabbed Grady and Uncle Ernest held out his arms to me. “I don’t want to ever,
ever
go through a night like that again!” he said at last.

“Neither do I,” I told him, trying not to cry as I was being passed from one relative to another. Even Deedee seemed glad to see us back. I managed to do okay until the crowd parted and Ma Maggie reached out to me. My grandmother held me until I had cried myself dry.

I scanned the crowd as we walked to the house arm in arm, hoping he would be here. Ma Maggie told me Uncle Ernest had shooed the media away earlier, but I was certain news of Josie’s disappearance had leaked to the press. If Ned knew Josie was lost, why wasn’t he here tearing the woods apart stick by stick to try and find her? But Marge and Burdette had arrived at the house ahead of us with Josie, and I didn’t see my husband anywhere.

But of course, he wouldn’t have had time. I had been in the woods so long, I had lost track of the hours, but surely he had telephoned, I thought. Ned must be on the way.

Naturally, Ma Maggie guessed what I was thinking. “Kate, we didn’t know how to get in touch with him, honey. Marge and I both tried to remember the name of that company he went with, but all we knew was that he was somewhere in California. You know we would’ve called him if we knew how.”

“It’s not your fault,” I told her. “I should’ve taken care of that earlier, but I had no idea she’d wandered off so far—or that we would get lost trying to find her.” Except for her swollen ankle and a multitude of scrapes and scratches, my daughter was fine, so there was no urgency in locating her father, but Josie would be eager to talk with him, and I knew he needed to be informed. I tried to phone Ned as soon as I got to the house, but the hotel lines were tied up and I couldn’t get through. He would just have to wait.

Water had never tasted as good, and I’m sure Josie, Grady and I must have consumed at least a gallon while Marge and my grandmother, with Violet’s help, put together a late, late breakfast of eggs, grits and ham with a huge bowl of fresh peaches and cantaloupe.

“I thought we had wandered off the ends of the earth,” I said over breakfast. “It was too dark to see and we couldn’t hear a soul. Didn’t seem like anybody was ever going to find us.”

“We would’ve searched over there today if you hadn’t turned up,” Uncle Lum said. “I think Casey looked some in that area yesterday until the sheriff told him to cover the woods below Remeth. Nobody had any idea you and Josie had gone so far!”

I helped myself to another piece of ham. “Neither did we,” I said.

Grady complained that Josie and I used up most of the hot water before he got his turn in the shower and I knew he wasn’t exaggerating. If my hand hadn’t been hurting where I had jabbed it earlier with a stick, I probably would have showered even longer. And fortunately for us, one of the rescue workers had medical training and was kind enough to stick around long enough to see to Josie’s ankle and bandage my hand. By five o’clock that afternoon, Josie was so tired she could hardly hold up her head, so we set up a cot for her in the far corner of the living room where I could keep an eye on her. I wasn’t ready to let my daughter out of my sight. Grady had fallen asleep on the wicker settee on the porch, and I knew I should try to rest, as well, but too much had happened to allow me to settle down just yet.